Eye Candy for Today: George Inness, Sunset in the Woods

The link is to a page on Wikimedia Commons from which you can access a high resolution file; the original is in the National Gallery of Art, DC, which also has a zoomable and downloadable high-res image.

There are paintings that seem to transcend art and move into the realm of ineffable mystery.

Of course, for American landscape master George Inness, transcendence, and the expression of the spiritual nature of the physical world, was his goal.

Don’t take the small image and detail crops I’ve provided above as your only experience of this image. Go to one of the links I’ve provided and fill your largest available screen; relax and enjoy the experience for a few minutes. (The original painting is four feet by six feet, or roughly 122 x 184 cm.)

Don’t look for detail, it’s the absence of detail that’s important here.

With his uncanny control of muted color, carefully finessed values, suggestive texture, and oh-so-subtle edges, Inness leads us into the woods, whispers to us of the sublime within the commonplace, and then steps out of the way to let our own perceptions carry us deeper.